Elena Vasquez 
I landed in Bangkok for the first time in 2009 with a 35-liter backpack, a Lonely Planet that was two editions out of date, and the absolute certainty that I had prepared enough. Within 48 hours I had been tuk-tuk…
I used to be a chronic overpacker. Not mildly — embarrassingly so. I once checked a 32-kilogram bag for a 10-day trip to Southeast Asia and spent three days of that trip doing laundry anyway because I had packed the…
The first time I got truly scared traveling alone, I was 24 years old on a night train from Budapest to Bucharest. A man had been watching me for two hours. I had no alarm, no plan, and no idea…
It was 2013, and I was standing at a gate in Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport watching my flight to Tbilisi push back from the jetway. My bag was on that plane. I was not. I had made it through security, found…
I was sitting in a hospital in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at 2 a.m., watching a nurse attach an IV drip to my arm, when I realized I had absolutely no idea what my travel insurance actually covered. I had bought…
I still remember standing on a rocky ledge above the Adriatic somewhere between Krk and Cres, squinting into water so blue and clear it looked photoshopped, thinking: why did nobody tell me about this place sooner? The Kvarner Gulf doesn’t always make the Croatia highlight reel — Dubrovnik hogs the spotlight, Split gets the Instagram … Read more
Knowing how to access and explore Meteora monasteries is the first step to making the most of your visit. These extraordinary religious complexes sit atop sheer sandstone pillars rising more than 400 meters above the Thessaly plain, which means reaching them takes a little more thought than a typical sightseeing stop. The good news is … Read more
There I was, standing at the entrance of Wat Pho in Bangkok, wearing a perfectly cute sundress — spaghetti straps, mid-thigh hem, the whole tropical vacation look — and a very kind but very firm guard handed me a pair of paper shorts and pointed me toward a changing area. Mortifying? A little. Easily avoidable? … Read more
If you’ve been searching for what to wear to temples in Thailand, you’re not alone — it’s one of the most Googled questions before visiting the country. The good news is that the rules aren’t complicated. Once you understand a few key principles, putting together the right outfit for temple in Thailand is actually pretty … Read more
Picture this: you’ve just sweated through a 45-minute tuk-tuk ride across Bangkok, you’re standing at the entrance of the Grand Palace, and the guard is looking at your strappy sundress like you’ve personally offended the monarchy. A small crowd of equally underdressed tourists shuffles beside you toward a sarong rental booth, wallets out, dignity slightly … Read more
